A Very Special Forum Thread

[Spiderdancer]

Justin's bunny story in "Happiness is..." got me thinking. Lots of us have pets, and lots of them do funny things. I'm not trying to turn this into "Chicken Soup for the Mutant Soul" or "Animals Can Be Almost Mutant," but if you've got a cute or amusing pet story, why not share it?

Say what pets you have, their names and species, and what they do that you think is cute, weird, or funny. RULE: Nothing gross, and no making stuff up.

[DocD83]

My parents have a cat whose tail twitches spastically whenever someone says "kitty" ("kitty" being the default name for all cats we've ever owned). That same cat once crawled up the back of the sofa and reached through the cushions to claw my back while I dozed in front of the TV.

The only other pets I have are fish. My room mate just got a cat, so I might have some more stories later.

[TheOogieBoogieMan]

My cat (Jones) gets really freaked out when the ceiling fan in my living room is turned on. I know it sounds cruel, but if Jones is in the living room, it's funny to turn on the fan to see him scurry on the spot before finding traction on the hardwood floor and zoom out of the room. It reminds me of the Flintstones.

[StarOpal]

Smokey, he's a cat.

He has this tendency to go 'ninja cat' and picks the strangest times to attack me. He's like Kato from the Pink Panther.

I had to leave the door open a little when I took a shower because of the steam. So one day, I'm washing my hair and the only warning I have of what's about to happen is one singular ding (he has a bell on his collar). Suddenly a shadow flashes across the curtain and 11 lbs of cat slams into my right shoulder. I let out a blood curdling scream and jump falling into the wall of my shower as he continues to slide down the curtain. Then he runs out of the bathroom like the Devil's after him.

Another time I'm asleep and, in my dream, I hear this dinging (dinging has become a bad omen). Wham! Cat lands in the middle of my chest. Gasping for air, I sit up so suddenly the cat goes flying. By the light of the street lamp from outside I can see the cat's face. It has a "holy crap!" look to it.

I've since installed a bathroom fan and learned to sleep with the door shut.

[Hucklebubba]

Streak--female sheltie

Columbo--male tabby

Like pretty much every cat/dog duo I've ever seen, Streak and Columbo regard each other with shaky neutrality. However, now that the weather's turning cold, Columbo has decided that he and Streak are, in fact, bestest pals for all time.

Y'see, Columbo has naught but paltry cat fur to protect him from the elements, whereas Streak's coat is something like two feet thick at its thinnest point.

So now when I'm out walking her and Columbo's outside as well, he falls into perfect step and cozies right up next to her.

Columbo also has a habit of launching brief and harmless attacks on the dog. Just the other day he evidently thought it would be neat to springboard off of her rear end, just to see how much air he could get. It happened so fast, Streak was too confused to retaliate.


Side note: Do cats have way less staying power than dogs, or am I just not good with them? I'm on my fifth cat in the same time frame as I've had this one dog.

[PoolMan]

Maybe the dog's eating them?

I don't have any pets myself, but I hear many, many funny stories about some friends of mine who have this insane cat who likes to bite them when they get... amorous.

[Spiderdancer]

My gray tabby and I have a long-running debate about where she will sleep at night. Loligo wishes to rest atop the warmest thing in the bedroom, namely my head. I have taken what she sees as the unreasonable stance that I wish to pass the night with my breathing orifices uncovered. A typical incident goes:

Shalen is lying on her back, half asleep.
Loligo walks up onto Shalen's chest, turns sideways, and flops over onto Shalen's face.
Shalen goes "Ackpth!" and shoves her off.
Loligo looks deeply offended and attempts to repeat the action.
Shalen shoves her again.
Loligo retires to the end of the bed, tail twitching, and attacks Shalen's toes through the covers.

Recently she's figured out that it is almost as warm for her to sleep draped over one of my shoulders with her cheek pressed against my cheek. This looks darn cute and does not impair my respiration. I can't imagine why people think cats are less affectionate than dogs... Of course, I've never had a dog try to suffocate me, either.

I have a Northwestern Forest Scorpion named Low Rider, too. All reading material I can find on him says he should be digging in the deep sand I put in his cage. He never, ever digs in the sand. Instead, he climbs the plastic plant in the corner. Sometimes he sits next to a big shiny marble in the other corner, like a little scorpion wizard with a crystal ball. It's kind of cute.

[Head Mutant]

And, hence, the first time ever Justin heard someone calling a scorpion "cute".

[Spiderdancer]

You should hear me talk to the jumping spiders I catch in our house. "Awww. What are YOU doing in here? You're supposed to be OUTSIDE. Come on, little guy, let's go. Oh, we're a girl. ...And we are PREGNANT. Then we'll be EXTRA CAREFUL, won't we? Yes, yes. Here you go! Eat lots of bugs! Bye bye!"

Hmm. I just potentially revealed to dozens of people at once that I am a whack job. I guess the avatar and signature sort of hint at that already...

[PoolMan]

admin said:

And, hence, the first time ever Justin heard someone calling a scorpion "cute".

And hence, for the BILLIONTH time ever, PoolMan heard Justin refer to himself in the third person.

[pfrsue]

Okay, it's no secret that I have two greyhounds. They are as thus:

Simon: Is known for barking at innocuous inanimate objects, racing the neighbor's border collie along the fenceline, hogging my big blue recliner and going ape whenever squeaky scampering animals are on the television. He also ate pgs. 63-68 out of "Famous Wisconsin Authors". (The Hamlin Garland chapter.) Out of the two greys, he's the intellectual. He knows several tricks and obeys both verbal and hand cues. To be honest, he's totally my buddy and terrific company when the spawn aren't here. Oddly enough, Simon inadvertantly won me fifty bucks when I wrote an essay about his falling down the stairs and entered it in a contest. That about covered the dog food bills for a month.

Flower (my avatar): She's the foster dog that never left. Has a partially amputated tail that resembles a broken windshield wiper, an overbite, permanent hair loss on her...uh... hams, and she suffers from an obsessive-compulsive fabric licking habit. (Don't sit on the sofa. It's sort of continually damp-ish.) Most greys aren't quite this screwed up - sadly she's a victim of neglect. Flower is pretty much as stupid as lint. We consider it a major achievement whenever she can find her way back into the house after she's done her 'business' outside. But there is no sweeter or more affectionate dog on the planet. (I checked!) Flower's biggest claim to fame so far was being beaten to a pulp by a squirrel in the back yard last fall. It was a big squirrel.

Currently there is a power struggle going on because it's cold in the house at night, and both hounds want the prime sleeping location. This would be on my bed. Most often, this would be the part of the bed that I tend to be sleeping in. If I make it to spring without suffocating or being crippled for life, it'll be a miracle!

[Genetic Mishap]

Doofus, male, Aussie Shepard/boxer/? mongrel.

Doofus is very talkative. He's also very whiny, and scared of everything. Sometimes when he whimpers, he tries to look like he's just yawning. It's the only time I've seen an animal besides a human do the "I'm not crying, I have stuff in my eye" style of covering your true emotions.

He's also scared of blinds, and he always runs away when a dog barks on TV. Also, I can pretty much get him to howl on command, which REALLY annoys everyone else in the house.

As long as we're not restricting ourselves to pets, I have an obsession similar to Shalen's, only with snakes. This summer I've caught a whole bunch of the cute little buggers; I even kept a snake diary. This does not tide over well when your family and friends are a bunch of ophidiophobes (or people with lives, whatever).

See my avatar? Yellow-bellied Water Snake, Nerodia erythrogaster, that I caught on the side of the road. He was none too happy with that business.

I also saved a brown recluse that I found in my dorm room this week. My roomie got pissed.

[Spiderdancer]

Snakes are awesome. Especially eyelash vipers. (They come in designer colors! They have eyelashes! What more do you want from a venomous reptile?)

[Genetic Mishap]

spiderdancer said:

Snakes are awesome. Especially eyelash vipers. (They come in designer colors! They have eyelashes! What more do you want from a venomous reptile?)

And arboreal! Don't forget arboreal!

[Big T]

This story involves my late family cat Thunder (a lorge gray longhair) and our dog Grizzly (Akita, Great Perenese cross).

When Thunder was alive he ruled the house and he made sure that any new comers learned to fear his iron claw, be it new kids (my brother and I) or puppies (grizzly).
From Grizzly's puppy days Thunder would actually hide around a corner and wait to swat this poor little puppy without any provocation, so Grizzly developped a great fear of this cat even when he grew to 10x his size.
Thunder also had a habit of sitting by the dog door waiting to swat a nose that should appear, thus Grizzly started swatting at the dog flap a few times before entering just to be sure. When Thunder died it was another couple of weeks before Grizzly stopped announcing his entry with thwacks at the dog door.
Even now Grizzly is still extremely nervous around cats, even tiny kittens.